Searching for a Sound We Haven't Heard Before
by chalantness
Summary: He sort of stands there and just stares for a moment like an idiot because, um. There's a pretty girl sitting in his spot. He's obviously got a few questions.


**Title:** _Searching for a Sound We Haven't Heard Before  
_**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** ~4,200  
**Characters:** Peter/Skye, very background Steve/Natasha  
**Prompt:** "Maybe something where both Skye and Peter are both being vetted for the Avengers. Or Peter saved Skye before she got her powers and now its Skye's turn to return the favor."  
**Summary:** He sort of stands there and just _stares_ for a moment like an idiot because, um. There's a pretty girl sitting in his spot. He's obviously got a few questions.

**For:** ink-and-roses

**A/N:** So, it was supposed to be a drabble, and then this happened. Oops?

**Searching for a Sound We Haven't Heard Before**

He meets her on a Tuesday.

She's sitting on his spot on the couch of the communal lounge of the Tower, and he sort of stands there and just _stares_ for a moment like an idiot because, um. There's a pretty girl sitting in his spot. He's obviously got a few questions. "How'd you get up here?" probably shouldn't be the first one he asks, but it is, and it makes him sound like even more of an idiot and also like an ass, too, and he grimaces. What he _meant_ was "You were obviously given clearance by Tony, so how do you know him, exactly? Oh, and by the way, I'm Peter."

But of course he couldn't just say any of that. She laughs a little, though, and doesn't seem offended, so he might be off the hook.

"Living in Stark Tower kind of gives me clearance to be here," she informs, sounding amused.

"You moved in?" And there goes another stupid question. She raises her eyebrows, grin widening ever so slightly. "Right, obviously, you just told me that." She glances away and presses her lips together like she's trying not to laugh. "I'm Peter, by the way."

"I…" She stops herself. "I'm Skye," she offers, standing up. He shakes the hand she offers. "So, Steve was supposed to be back in time for dinner, but…"

"Yeah, Natasha invited me over to eat, too," he says. Yeah, he now realizes this could've been the reason why. "I don't really know how to cook."

"Can you follow directions?" He shrugs. "Me neither," she laughs. "But, between the two of us, how hard could it really be?"

... ...

They manage to make something decent without burning down the kitchen, so he calls that a win. And no, he's not buying it when Steve and Natasha text them, separately, saying something came up and that they're sorry for missing dinner.

"Aren't they supposed to be better at lying?" Skye asks, peering at the text from Natasha on his phone. "She uses emoticons?"

"_All the time_," he says. Skye laughs. He decides that he wants her to do that more often.

... ...

(And she was definitely going to say, "I know," after he'd introduced himself. She already knew who he was.)

(He's really going to need some answers.)

... ...

He does get a few of them from Natasha a few days later, when they're having brunch during the hour gap between his morning classes.

Skye is a superhuman like him, but didn't know she had powers when SHIELD recruited her, and they kept her isolated for her own protection because she was having a hard time adjusting. (He doesn't know who "they" is, and considering Natasha's tone, he doesn't ask.) Natasha went with Steve, Tony, and Nick to meet Skye once they heard about her, and then Steve stepped in, so now she's in New York so she can be monitored by Tony and Bruce. It's just a precaution, since she's a lot better with her control now, Natasha tells him.

"There's more to the story than just that, Natasha." It's not a question. He _knows_ there's more. He can tell.

"That's all you're getting out of me, kid," she replies, stabbing a piece of her waffle with her fork. "The rest you'll just have to ask her yourself."

... ...

Tony calls him over to see if he wants to tinker around with a few things at the Tower, which, duh. Of course he wants to. So he goes there after school and he sees Skye sitting on top of one of the medical tables in the infirmary as he walks by. Bruce is drawing blood from her arm, for routine checkups. It must suck being pricked into all the time, but she's laughing as he walks in, so she must be okay. That's one thing he's quickly learned about Skye since she moved here two weeks ago: she's always in a good mood. It's pretty great.

She waves at him as he walks in.

Bruce looks up. "Oh, hi, Peter," he greets. "Skye's just about done here if you two want to go out and play."

Peter rolls his eyes, but he's grinning, too. He's used to everyone here referring to him like a kid, and now they're doing it to Skye, too. They're still treated as equals in all the ways that really matter, so he's not bothered by it. Plus, he gets to call them old, so there's that.

Bruce sticks a cotton ball to her arm with a piece of medical tape and then Skye hops off of the table. "Thanks doc," she says, and Bruce grins when she ruffles his hair.

"What're they checking for, anyway?" Peter asks as they head down the hallway.

"They're making sure that my powers aren't like, hurting me from within, I guess," she says with a bit of a shrug.

"Has that happened before?"

"A little," she answers.

He looks at her. "You've hurt yourself before?"

"It wasn't on purpose or anything," she says quickly, cringing a little, like she's remembering something she'd rather not. That's enough for him to feel like a jerk. He wants to know more about her, yeah, but he doesn't want her to be uncomfortable or anything. He also wants for her to keep smiling, and laughing, and she's not doing either right now.

"How many times do you think Tony's hurt himself with his own suits?" he asks.

Skye scoffs and shoots him a smirk. "His suit pieces fly _right at him_. How many times has he _not_ hurt himself?"

"Good point," he replies.

He literally gets kicked out of the workshop for a few minutes when he asks Tony this a little later, but Skye is laughing so hard as Tony's pushing him out the door that there're tears in her eyes, and Peter doesn't regret a second of it.

... ...

"Hey, I'm sorry if I… you know, crossed a line or something," he says when the two of them are sitting on the couch the next day. She's flipping through channels and he's snacking on a party size bag of chips. She hasn't been acting weird with him, but he still wants to say something.

Her eyes don't even leave the screen. "Your apology skills seriously suck," she tells him, but then hands over the remote, so yeah. He thinks he's forgiven.

... ...

He's walking out of his last class for the day when he sees her sitting on a bench at the edge of the quad. She's wearing a purple sweater and dark jeans and her hair is braided over one shoulder, and he's smiling as he yanks his earbuds out. She hasn't seen him yet – her eyes are focused on her phone, no doubt trying to beat her high score again – but she's got this huge grin on her face and her mood is totally infectious. Even if he's a little confused as to what she's doing here. He doesn't remember telling her where he went to school.

She huffs at her phone as he nears, and he chuckles a little, grabbing her attention. "Hey," she greets, standing.

"Couldn't beat it?" he asks, gesturing to her phone.

"Steve _always_ beats my high scores and then _I_ can't beat them!"

Peter laughs. "You know he gets that from Natasha, right? She's always messing with my games. Don't know why, because she has the same games on her own phone." Skye grins and shakes her head. He glances over her again before meeting her gaze. "You look… nice."

"Thanks, Parker," she says. "You don't look so bad yourself." He chuckles and glances down. "So, you're probably wondering what I'm doing here."

"Well, a little," he admits.

Skye shrugs a little and glances around. "I just needed to get out of the Tower. I've been here for almost three weeks and I feel like I haven't _been_ anywhere. Which is stupid, and Steve told me that I don't have to like, _ask_ anyone's permission to go out into the city I live in, but it's been a strange transition, I guess, and – I'm rambling. I'm sorry."

"No, it's good." She raises an eyebrow. "I get it," he says. "You always had to check in with someone first and it's a hard habit to break."

"That pretty much sums it up," she says with a laugh. "Please tell me you have something fun for us to do."

He strokes his chin as pretends to be in thought. She presses her lips together, smiling. "Are you afraid of heights?" he asks after a moment.

"No," she says slowly, she can already tell what he's thinking.

"Perfect."

... ...

"You saved me once before, you know."

He turns to look at her, but she's still focused on the city below them. She has this small, awed smile on her face, and her cheeks are flushed, and there's a bit of a breeze blowing her hair around. He kind of wishes he had his camera on him, but he doesn't really bring it to school anymore. But it's fine. He thinks he won't have a hard time remembering this moment. She's standing close enough to the edge of the roof to make him a little nervous, but he's not afraid she'll fall or anything, either. He'll just catch her if she needs him to.

She just looks at him for a moment and then breathes out a laugh. "You probably don't remember when it happened."

He shakes his head a little. He's not going to insult her by pretending he does. Besides, he obviously hadn't been paying much attention at the time otherwise he would've definitely remembered meeting her before.

"You were trying to jump on top of the getaway car during a high speed chase." She grins at the memory and it makes him smile, too. "The guy nearly ran me over, but then along comes Spiderman, yanking me out of the way within _inches_ of getting hit. Cut it a little close for my taste, but…" He chuckles. "I nagged Steve about who Spiderman was."

"And that's why you already knew who I was when we first met," he guesses. She nods. "So why didn't you say anything then?"

"I've been wrong about people before," she says softly, glancing away. He nods and looks out over the city. Yeah, he knows the feeling. "But I don't think I'm wrong about you."

He smiles and glances down. (He doesn't think he's wrong about her, either.)

... ...

Natasha knocks him flat on his back when they're sparring, and his vision's just coming back into focus when he finds her pinning him down, a smirk on her face. "_Fuck_," he groans into his hand, because he's definitely doing to feel that in the morning. "Shit," he mutters.

"We can go to the other room if you're too distracted," Natasha offers, the innocence in her voice not at all matching the devious twinkle in her eyes.

There're only four of them in the training room right now and they both know Steve isn't the one that's distracting Peter.

"Shut up," he mutters, but then Skye's grinning down at him as she offers her hand, and he can't even find it in himself to be pissed that Natasha knocked him down _again_.

... ...

They've been on missions together before, but he still hasn't seen her powers and he's not really sure how she gets away with that. He doesn't think she's going out of her way to hide them from him or anything, but she's not exactly outright about them, either. And ever since that first time, he doesn't try to push her. There could be a lot of reasons why he hasn't seen her powers and he has a few theories, but at the end of the day, he'd save her life in a heartbeat and he knows she'd do the same for him. That's all that really matters.

When he finally sees them, though, he learns why she isn't exactly active with her powers in New York.

They're at a Hydra base hidden in some abandoned farm in the middle of the country, with miles of empty plain between them and the nearest towns, and there're a few guys actually on site when they drop in to investigate.

See, he's always known she was excellent at combat. He's seen her knock out guys that're twice her weight and sometimes even a foot taller than her, and he didn't think anything was supernatural about it. Natasha does stuff like that all the time. But right now, he's up above and tossing a guy over the railing, and he sees two guys closing in on Skye below. Sam is preoccupied across the room, and Peter's about to jump down there to help her, but then he sees her throw her hand out and one of them gets _thrown_ back a good few feet and then she catches a punch from the other, does this little twirl thing and throws a punch of her own. The guy just barely dodges, and her fist leaves a little crater in the brick wall.

_What the—?_

He shoots a web out and propels himself forward, knocking one of the guys over as he lands a few feet away from Skye. One of them tries to get their arms around Skye, but she snatches a rifle off of the ground and slams it into his side, and Peter swears he can feel the vibrations of the impact in the air as she kicks him to the ground.

He's so focused on Skye that he doesn't notice the Hydra agent with a blade heading right for him, not until Skye glances up and gets this _look_ on her face as she shouts his name.

Peter turns in time to see the guy raising his arm, the blade flashing as the moonlight hits it, only a few feet away.

And then the ground trembles suddenly, violently, making him stumble a little by the force of it, and his eyes widen from behind his mask as a ground literally _splits open_ from right underneath the guy, and trapping him up to his waist in the cracks.

Peter turns to look at Skye again, and though her eyes are a little wide, a little wild, she doesn't seem surprised by what just happen, and a puzzle piece clicks into place.

... ...

"You saved me," he says later, when they're waiting outside Tony's office for their debriefing.

She glances at him in her peripheral. "Did you think I wouldn't?"

"I knew you would," he corrects. "I just wasn't sure _how_ you might do it." She presses her lips together, staring ahead. "It was… _shocking_."

This laugh bursts out of her, echoing sharply through the hallway, and she slaps a hand over her mouth almost in surprise. She stares up at him like she's trying to figure out if he really just said what he did. He smiles down at her cheekily and she giggles into her hand. "That was horrible," she says.

"It still cracked you up, though, right?"

"_Stop_," she laughs, and he doesn't even try to dodge it when she shoves him aside.

... ...

He tells Aunt May about Skye, because she notices that he's been in a good mood and out more often, and she knows it hasn't always been with Natasha. One reason why Aunt May adores Natasha so much is because she always makes it a point to stop by for a visit whenever she borrowed Peter for the day. Natasha's been over for dinner, too, and sometimes with Steve, and like, it's kind of hilarious, knowing how freaking scary Natasha can be on a mission, then seeing her cracking up with Aunt May while they're baking pies in the kitchen.

But, anyway, Aunt May tells him to invite Skye over for brunch with Steve and Natasha on Saturday, and Skye is adorably nervous when he does.

(Granted, he's a little nervous, too, and he's not sure why. He doesn't doubt – at all – that Aunt May will love Skye, but it's still important to him that she does.)

"Should I make something? I should make something, right?"

It's late, and he's lying in his bed with his phone pressed against his ear, smiling at the sound of her voice. "You don't have to make Aunt May anything," he promises. "But, if you want to make _me_ something, I won't discourage it."

"Shut up," she laughs. "I'm not trying to get you to like me. You already do."

He grins. Yeah, he does – probably a little more than she thinks. Or maybe she already knows. The awesome part about it is that, yeah, he thinks about it sometimes, whether she likes him _like that_. But it doesn't make it weird between them, the fact that he might be having feelings for her. It feels easy, comfortable. It always is with her.

"Skye, relax," he says. He hears her sigh a little over the phone. "She's going to love you, alright?"

"Alright," she echoes. "You know, you always make me feel a little less crazy."

Yeah, that goes both ways.

... ...

Saturday morning, she's sitting beside him at the table in this printed sundress with a jean jacket thrown over, her hair in loose curls around her face, and he knows Natasha caught him glancing over Skye when she got pulled into a hug by Aunt May. Skye has amazing legs and he's trying not to stare, but he can't really help it.

"You know, you're really gorgeous, dear," Aunt May tells her as she hands Skye the plate of bacon.

Skye's cheeks flush a little, and Natasha's got this little grin on her face as she chimes in with, "She is, isn't she, Peter?"

"_Natasha_," he groans. _God_, why did he go along with this idea?

"You should at least give her an honest compliment, since she got all dressed up for you and all," Steve adds, and Skye hisses his name, shifting in her seat as she no doubt kicks him underneath the table.

The three of them all laugh, and he can't help but chuckle, too, even as he rubs his hand over his face, feeling his cheeks warm. Skye's trying (and failing) to hide her smile as she huffs and turns away from Steve, and Peter catches her gaze, grinning a little wider as she shoots him an exasperated expression. And, alright, despite a few more comments here and there for the rest of brunch, the meal actually goes really well. Steve and Natasha and Aunt May have always gotten along, and Aunt May is absolutely charmed by Skye, which surprises no one. They stay sitting at the table well after they're done eating, that's how long the conversation goes. They're not even talking about any one particular thing, either.

Aunt May asks (tells) them to wash the dishes afterward, which, yeah, he was obviously going to do. So he and Skye stay in the kitchen to clean up while Steve, Natasha, and Aunt May sit in the living room and drink coffee as they continue talking.

"You're like the only person I know other than Steve that actually _likes_ cleaning," he points out, nudging her with his elbow.

"It's relaxing," she says with a laugh, handing him another plate to dry. "Besides, when you spend weeks alone in an isolated cabin, you have to do all your own cleaning."

He blinks. She pauses briefly with her soaping, like she's as surprised as he is by what she's just said.

"What?" he asks.

She looks up at him with this soft smile he knows is meant to reassure him. He relaxes again and goes back to drying. "When I first discovered my powers, I was kind of a wreck," she tells him. "I had to be by myself for protection—not just for everyone else, but mine, too."

He nods a little, so that she knows he's paying attention. But he's also picturing Skye, alone, in the middle of nowhere, and it kind of pisses him off.

Skye isn't the kind of person that's meant to be alone. If anything, separating her from everyone else—that would make things worse.

As if hearing his thoughts, she sets a hand over his. It gets wet with soap and water, but he could care less. "I know it wasn't the best strategy, but it's more complicated than just isolating me," she promises. He nods again, holding her gaze. She's still smiling at him. "The place I stayed in is actually where Steve spent some time after thawing, which I thought was pretty cool, so could you imagine my surprise when _Captain America_ himself shows up at the cabin all of a sudden one day and told me that he wanted to meet me in person?"

He chuckles a little. Yeah, he can totally picture what her face must've looked like.

"I promise, I'm alright now," she says. "I think all that needed to happen for me to end up in New York. So I don't want to change any of it."

He doesn't say anything, but he turns his hand over, their palms pressing together as he threads his fingers through hers and squeezes gently, and she smiles like that tells her everything she needs to know.

... ...

He knows he Grant Ward is, and he knows who Grant Ward is in relation to Skye. He's a little surprised when she gets put on a team of them that're heading over to the base he's being held at for questioning, but she's obviously not, so he thinks she actually requested it herself.

She lays eyes on Grant Ward for the first time in months and doesn't so much as flinch, drills him for questions and then passes her folder off to Maria when it's obvious that he's avoiding what they need him to divulge. Peter's not sure what _he_ was assigned to this task for, because Maria sends him back up to the ground level with Skye as soon as Skye's finished with her part in the interrogation. But he knows to pick and choose when he pries, and he honestly couldn't care less about this Hydra double agent, so he just nods and follows Skye up the elevator. There's a little kitchen in the main office where Maria told them to wait, and he makes them both coffee because it was really early when they'd left.

"I thought it would suck to see him again," Skye says after a moment. He's sitting across from her and she's staring into her cup, stirring absently.

"Did it?" he asks.

"No," she says easily, and he can tell that she means it. "I didn't really feel anything at all."

She doesn't sound like she's surprised. She sounds like she's reiterating something that she's known for a while now.

"That's good, then," he guesses.

She nods and meets his eyes. "I mean, I still feel _something_ about it—him. But it isn't heartbreaking anymore." She shrugs her shoulders a little and smiles. "I came to New York to see if I could figure out who I am after everything that happened. And I think it actually worked."

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah," she breathes, nudging his foot under the table. "The problem is that I have to figure out who the hell I'm going to be now."

He smiles from over the rim of his cup, and she's got that sparkle in her eyes when he says, "Between the two of us, how hard could that be?"

... ...

He kisses her for the first time a week later, on another rooftop, with his fingers combing through her hair and her hands holding onto his collar. Being with Skye is kind of totally exciting and completely comfortable at the same time, and he hasn't felt this way in a long while, but it doesn't freak him out – not at all – as much as he thought it would.

He'll tell her about Gwen and everything else soon enough, because he wants to. He wants her to know.

He just wants to know one thing himself before that happens.

"Hey," he breathes, pulling away a little as he leans his forehead against hers. Her eyelids flutter open and she meets his gaze. "So, were you wrong about me?"

She gnaws on her lip a little before smiling at him brightly, her little laugh trailing through the wind.

"No. No, I was completely right about you."


End file.
